Christmas Cookie Bake Fest 2011

Now that the holidays (and excuses for massive over-eating) are behind us, I can finally get back "on track", aka, a track. I didn't make a concrete New Years Resolution, except to be better...at everything...ie: design, my job, learning, cooking, being healthy(er), cleaning, friendship, exploring, blog-posting, impromptu dance-partying, etc.

But, I can't let 2011 go without sharing my cookie baking experience. This is the 2nd year that I have had cookie-bake-fest, which entails me locking myself in my kitchen for 48 hours, and of course making a huge floury, cookie doughy, confectioners sugary mess! It was great, until I had to clean it up. Special thanks to Martha Stewart for her sugar cookie and royal icing recipe.

Look at all those trees!

The setup. Of course I moved into the living room for decorating so I wouldn't miss Sunday football!

127 Cookies Later!

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July! (Belated of course.)

I brought these Berry Cheesecake Squares to a Fourth of July/Retirement Party and they were gobbled up in minutes! I found the recipe from this sweet new website I found, Tablespoon.com. Since they're made of pre-made pie crust, they were super easy to make! Recipe can be found here.

Bugs and Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for my friend for her birthday last week. It all started when I wanted to get a cupcake late at night.

We drove around town hoping that one of the many cupcake shops in our town might still magically be open. No dice. Dejectedly, we came home and I whipped up a batch of these. Nothing complicated, just store-bought strawberry cupcake mix and cream cheese frosting. I did however make the effort to try and make them look pretty by making my own piping bag by cutting a hole in the end of frosting-filled plastic bag.

I took some inspiration from these bug cakes my family and I made for my niece's 1st birthday a couple months ago. We stayed up until 2am to make and decorate 32 bug cakes!

We definitely got better as the night of bug-cake-decorating progressed and learned which icings were easier to use. Some words of advice: don't use gel icing unless it is atop a solid layer of actual frosting....otherwise it sinks into the cake and makes it spongey. Lesson learned.

Some of my favorites.

The 32 bug cakes live to see another day...until they all got eaten by ravaging humans the next day.

This one is one of my favorites...I call him "Enraged Deer-tick!" Because that's not gross at all, right?.

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few days ago, I had the sudden urge to bake some chocolate chip cookies. I don't know where this urge came from, since I'm not really an avid baker. All of the chemistry and precise measuring just drives me crazy. I like to just throw things into a bowl and hope something works, which is probably the reason I have had so many baking failures.

I googled chocolate chip cookie recipes and found this gem at allrecipes.com. (I basically only picked this recipe b/c I knew I had all of the ingredients in the house and it only has 3 steps. SCORE! Of course I am stubborn and can't follow simple directions; I had to make it my own. But how could I make this different/better?

So I looked into the fridge and what do I see? An entire untapped bag of luscious cherries that would go bad if I didn't eat them immediately! Sure why not? I sliced and diced these up, took out the pits of course, and threw them into the batter. (Disclaimer: I did alter another step of the recipe. Before I put them into the oven, I put them in the fridge to chill for 10 minutes. I guess it makes the cookies spread out less, or something?)

Anyway, here's my recipe (As altered from allrecipes.com):


Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened (I use Smart Balance)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped cherries (without pits)

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2.) Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. Add the chopped cherries to the batter last. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans. ( I ignored this and Pammed mine.)
3.) Chill dough in the oven for at least 10 minutes
4.) Bake for about 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.
5.) Cool on a baking rack.

End result: Pure ecstasy in my mouth! Soft and warm gooeyness! And an added bonus, my boyfriend didn't scarf them all down because he was weirded out by the cherries in them. More for me! They did end up spreading out to make one large cookie on the pan, so make sure you leave extra room.

Chillin in the fridge

Fresh out of the oven